Jesuit Executive MBA Programs:

Building a Just Society

Co-Authors

William Lindsey

LoyolaMarymountUniversity

Francis Petit

FordhamUniversity

14th Annual World Forum

Colleagues in Jesuit Business Education

International Association of Jesuit Business Schools

Business and Education in an Era of Globalization:

The Jesuit Position

July 20-23, 2008

Introduction

Our premise is a simple one. Jesuit Executive MBA (EMBA) programs are and can continue to develop principled leaders who can significantly contribute to building a more just society. Recent scandals at Enron, WorldCom, Tyco and too many other companies are simply failures in leadership. Leadership is critical and business schools, especially those in Jesuit Institutions, have an important role in developing leadership talent. This paper reports on the efforts of twelve EMBA programsthat are resident in American Jesuit Institutions, to build a more just society.

Principle-Centered Leadership Needed More Than Ever

Principle-centered leadership has been defined on the basis of (1) the quality of the leader’s principles and (2) the leader’s conviction in living by them (Covey, 1992). Principle-centered leaders believe in and are committed to a set of moral principles, and then remain true to those principles in their actions and decisions (Lindsey and Pate, 2006).

Principle-centered leadership develops over time as leaders are true to their principles in the face of critical ethical decisions. There is a critical need for principle-centered leadership. One big reason is the failure of leadership at Enron, WorldCom, Tyco and too many other companies. In the wake of these scandals, we don’t need more standards-based guidelines or accounting-based rules to cover every possible situation. Instead, we need leaders of character and integrity. We need leaders who don’t put their own egos and greed ahead of the welfare of the company and its employees. We need principled leaders who make ethically-based decisions while considering how both other people and the environment will be affected by their actions(Lindsey and Pate, 2006).

We also need programs and curricula that prepare leaders who make tough decisions and provide examples of responsible action. The World Resources Institute and The Aspen Institute Initiative use the term “Social-impact management” to describe Social Innovation through Business research and curricular domain that exists at the intersection of business needs and wider societal concerns and that reflects their complex interdependency (WRI, 2001). The Aspen Initiative for Social Innovation through Business clearly states, “Social-impact management is a way of thinking about traditional business activities that assumes and examines the mutual interdependency between business and society. Without a sophisticated understanding of this interdependency, neither business nor the society in which it operates can thrive” (Aspen Institute, 2000). Social-impact management is a descriptor for the confluence of ethics, social responsibility and management that exist in JesuitBusinessSchool programs.

Integrity and character are the bedrock of leadership. Communication, whether it is internally within the organization or with external stakeholders, conveys the organization’s position and views on social responsibility. Bill Ford, Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors at Ford Motor Company sums up the importance of social-impact considerations in management:

"The fundamental challenge facing business in the 21st century will be meeting the needs of consumers and shareholders ... in a way that balances economic, environmental and social requirements ... . The task for business schools is to engage young leaders and give them a long-term vision of success that includes social responsibility. Companies must behave differently in the next century, and will require new leadership" (WRI, 2001).

The Jesuit Advantage

Jesuit Schools of Business restin a rich centuries-old Jesuit tradition of ethical self-awarenessamidst academic freedom. Common themes in Jesuit education include educating the whole person, promotion of justice, self awareness and acquiring knowledge in rigorous learning environments. Let us look at Jesuit education from a different perspective, that is,from what the individual actually learns and how students are prepared for increased management and leadership responsibilities. In this “inside out” approach, as the person acquires knowledge and develops management and leadership skills he/she becomes better equipped to make to better, more informed decisions and to measure the effect of those decisions. Decisions thus take on a broader perspective that includes using quantitative data (profits, revenue growth, etc.), qualitative data (how people and the surrounding community are affected) and understanding personal decision-making style. More importantly, self awareness provides a foundation for ethical decision making and for mustering the courage to make tough unpopular decisions.

Leaders make decisions that affect performance, employees, customers, and impact local communities. As glaringly evident in the Enron, WorldCom and Tyco debacles, when greed and self interest lead, performance and people suffer. By contrast, principle-centered leaders who act according to strong, ethical values don’t end up in jail, and their companies perform better in the long run. Ethical actions and decisions are on the high road, which appears to be the harder road for some leaders to take(Lindsey and Pate, 2006).

The ideal environment for leadership development is one that commits equally to teaching students hard skills and encouraging them to understand, question, and develop their values. By emphasizing self-awareness and teaching decision-making through hands-on practical experience using case histories and real-life examples provides a strong base for teaching leadership(Lindsey and Pate, 2006). Ultimately, “the proof is in the pudding.”

In EMBA programs, we are in a better position to teach leadership because our students already have experience in the corporate world and have faced leadership challenges. They have experience that provides context for learning. Education provides contextual meaning to their experience, and the classroom becomes a leadership laboratory. By repeatedly evaluating leadership performance in real-life situations and their individual responses to the sensitive issues discussed in class, students become increasingly aware of and are able to identify the actions, activities, and corporate issues that together create better leaders. Moreover, by continually viewing this in relation to their own individual perspective, they develop a leadership consciousness(Lindsey and Pate, 2006).

Ethics is indisputably a core element of leadership development. While many business schools have rushed to insert that element into their programs, this approach often leaves ethics as an add-on rather than an integral component. The hard skills – finance, statistics, operations management, information technology – tend to dominate the business curriculum, overshadowing the balance of values, self-awareness and ethics(Lindsey and Pate, 2006).

For at least the past 450 years, Jesuits have taken a strong stand in favor of high moral and ethical principle. As Lowney notes, “Jesuits did not become successful leaders simply by adhering to particular religious beliefs but by the way they lived and worked. And their way of living holds value for everyone, whatever his or her creed” (Lowney, 2003).

An overriding theme of Jesuit education considers it critically important that social-impact, ethics-based management be incorporated into educational delivery models. Jesuit Business Schools have a long-running reputation for academic rigor steeped in the liberal arts tradition. Service to humanity and the stewardship of the environment has and continues to be important underlying components of Jesuit institutions. For example, following in this rich tradition, “LMU understands and declares its purpose to be the encouragement of learning, the education of the whole person, the service of faith and the promotion of justice.” Education is seen as a means for preparing graduates for productive service to society.

By emphasizing the importance of character, socially responsible action, and ethical conduct, the Executive MBA Programs prepare managers for leadership positions in their places of work and in the communities they live. Many of these students are already in the workplace and many hold influential positions. Executive MBA students are managers with extensive responsibility who exercise substantial influence.

The Common Thread---Jesuit EMBA Programs

There are thirteen EMBA Programs inUnited StatesJesuit institutions of higher education. These institutions are:

  1. FordhamUniversity
  2. GeorgetownUniversity
  3. LoyolaCollege in Maryland
  4. LoyolaUniversityChicago
  5. LoyolaMarymountUniversity
  6. MarquetteUniversity
  7. Saint Joseph’s University
  8. RockhurstUniversity
  9. Saint LouisUniversity
  10. Santa ClaraUniversity
  11. SeattleUniversity
  12. University of San Francisco
  13. XavierUniversity

Within these institutions, there are programs that incorporate themes of Corporate Social Responsibility, Ethical Decision Making, and Leadership for a Just and Humane World. Below aresome examples of how the majority of these institutions, as taken from their individual web sites, have incorporated these frameworks within their respective programs.

FordhamUniversity

  • Executive students are required to take the following course: Contemporary Ethical Issues in Business

GeorgetownUniversity

  • Executive students are required to take the following course: Business Ethics

LoyolaCollege in Maryland

  • Executive students in both the EMBA and Fellows Programs are required to take the following courses: Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility; Capstone Retreat: Putting Values Into Action

LoyolaUniversity of Chicago

  • Executive students are required to take the following courses: Business Ethics; Issues in International Business Ethics.

LoyolaMarymountUniversity

  • Executive students are required to take the following courses: Ethics and Spirituality in the Workplace, Decision Support Foundation; Leadership and the 21st Century Executive; Manager as Decision Maker.

SeattleUniversity

  • Executive students are required to take the following courses: Building Vision for a Global Community; Leadership Synthesis, Reflection and Development; Leadership for a Just and Humane World; Law and Corporate Social Responsibility.

MarquetteUniversity

  • Executive students are required to take the following course: Ethical and Societal Issues in Business.

RockhurstUniversity

  • Ethical Leadership and Corporate Social Responsibility are themes within the program.

University of San Francisco

  • Ethics and Social Responsibility is one of the five themes within the program.

As can be seen in the information above, Jesuit Executive MBA Programs are in a unique position to have a profound impact on current executives, as well as future business leaders within society. As indicated earlier, it is obvious from the current market climate that executives are faced with many challenging decisions that can have monumental ethical consequences. Whether it was planned or not, most Jesuit EMBA Programs have incorporated some degree of Corporate Social Responsibility, Ethical Decision Making and Leadership for a Just and Humane World within each program. Given the recent news headlines of corporate scandal, mistrust and white collar crime, perhaps Jesuit EMBA Programs can serve as that one vehicle in creating a more just society within Corporate America and the international community as a whole.

Examples from Jesuit Executive MBA Programs

The following examples illustrate the impact that Jesuit EMBA programs can collectively have on creating a more just society.

FordhamUniversity

The Fordham University EMBA Program was established in 1998 and its tenth class will graduate by May 2009. The program is a full MBA in Management Systems. EMBA students receive the equivalent MBA degree as students who attend the full-time and/or part-time programs. The concentration, as indicated earlier, is in Management Systems with a global focus as well as a management development focus. The goal of this program is to have students “operationalize” the learning immediately so as to “power their professional performance” now and in the future.

The Graduate School of Business Administration at FordhamUniversity was established in 1969 in the Jesuit tradition of excellence in education, intellectual vigor and ethical conduct. The institution’s commitment, as indicated in the Academic Bulletin 2007-2008, is as follows:

  • Instilling skills necessitated by globalization;
  • Ethics in business;
  • Understanding the use of technological innovation;
  • Lifelong achievement of intellectual excellence;
  • The use of metropolitan NewYork’s unique bounty of resources; and
  • Humanistic concern for our students.

(Fordham GBA Academic Bulletin, 2007-2008).

With this as a backdrop, within the EMBA Program there is a mandatory course within the curriculum titled “Contemporary Ethical Issues in Business” in which the goal of the course is not to necessarily sway the executive students to a particular ethical philosophical thought but rather make them aware of ethical dilemmas and potential issues so as to frame out their own convictions and beliefs. As part of the required deliverable for this course, EMBA students are required to explore an ethical crossroads in which they were confronted on the job and then they must frame out how they responded to this crossroads and how the literature, if at all, supported their actions.

EMBA students’ feedback on this experience has been profound. They indicate in course evaluations and individual discussions that such an exercise has enabled them to view ethics on the job in an entirely new way and has made their perspective on ethical issues quite different from when they started the program.

In addition, EMBA students at FordhamUniversityparticipate in an international student consulting project as a capstone pedagogical experience. Each cohort, throughout the program’s history, has traveled to China to present their findings from each consulting project to the top leadership within these corporations. While the focus of each consulting project is on “market development and growth,” there is inevitably a focus, within each project and presentation, on the role of ethics in business and corporate social responsibility. In a climate where some view these type actions and initiatives blatantly missing, corporate executives in China find the discussion of ethics and corporate social responsibility quite refreshing and always leave the presentation excited about the potential of leading their industry in this regard. Overall, with the economic growth of China as a world power, ethics and corporate social responsibility within this emerged market can certainly go a long way.

LoyolaMarymountUniversity

LMU’s EMBAProgram is designed for managers with significant managerial and leadership experience. Directly supporting the Collegeof Business Administrationand University missions, the Program focuses on building ethical leadership. The pertinent educational objective for the EMBA is “to provide graduates with a framework for ethical decision making, leading responsibly and acting with integrity.” Through EMBA student-conducted outreach projects to smaller non-profit and disadvantaged businesses, companies and organizations come to know the values of the University and its focus on ethical conduct.

A competency-based approach adds depth to the curriculum by providing 21st century managers with the ability to use critical thinking skills and knowledge to handle challenges in the rapidly changing and unpredictable workplace. Ethical decision-making and social-responsible actions are deeply intertwined in leadership, and as such are “mapped” into course content and application project assignments. Learning outcome objectives are established and assessed at the conclusion of a module.

To illustrate how a competency is threaded throughout the entire twenty-one month program “Leading with Integrity,” the main social-impact management competency will be used. The progression starts in the first semester by introducing the importance of understanding one’s own core values. A model for ethical decision making is introduced and forms the basis for assessing increasingly more complex ethical and social issues. In the next semester students deal with conflict resolution of ethical issues and start to incorporate a personal view of ethical decision making. The Summer Consulting Project, placed between the second and third semesters, is an experiential learning activity where students engage in a business problem-solving project with a small non-profit or disadvantaged business. This provides an opportunity for students to become directly involved in socially responsible action. In the third semester ethics, core personal values and social responsibility are integrated into the business environment. In the final semester students prepare a personal plan for balancing the effective use of ethics and social responsibility as a tool for business leadership.

A major requirement in the LMU EMBA Program is a management-consulting project conducted between the first year and second year that reaches out to small non-profit and disadvantaged businesses. The project’s focus is three fold: 1) to provide EMBA students an opportunity to use the sophisticated knowledge and skills acquired in the EMBA to assist small companies in the Los Angeles business community; 2) to provide small companies free, high level consulting support that they would not ordinarily be able to afford; and 3) to support the University’s mission of outreach and support to the community. Since the first EMBA class in 2000, twenty six EMBA student teams have served twenty seven clients.

Through these EMBA summer projects entrepreneurial thinking, ethical action and business practices are integrated with real-life experiences. The classroom experiences are enhanced through the challenge of a real-life business assignment. The melding of explicit and tacit knowledge delivered in a business setting is a unique aspect of the EMBA Program. EMBA student teams assigned to these challenges gain an understanding of the importance of developing knowledge outside of the classroom to improve the learning process.

The Executive MBA Industry

In order to determine if Jesuit EMBA Programs are a vehicle to create a more “Just Society”, it is first important to analyze the overall EMBA Market to see if such potential exists in terms of popularity and scale.

With this as a backdrop, and on face value, it appears that the Executive MBA market is thriving and continues to be in the growth stage of the product lifecycle. This is especially true for programs outside the United States (EMBA Council, 2007).